It Started With A Spyglass
by Eomer'sFaelwen
Summary: Hook has come to Storybrooke, and, unable to enact his revenge as planned, settles for the next best thing: spying on the Swan girl.
1. Chapter 1

The night was bitterly cold. His leather cloak kept out most of the chill, but some numbness had begun to creep into his limbs, making them stiff. He stood up on the rooftop to stretch out his aching muscles, which were protesting strongly at having held a crouch for so long. He had been up here for hours, and wasn't about to give up his perfect perch in favor of the comfort of his ship's cabin just yet. It had taken him a week to find the perfect vantage point from which to watch her. The rooftop that he was currently occupying was directly adjacent to the sheriff's station, and with the use of his spyglass, he had been silently watching her go about her day.

The sky had already turned to an inky black hours before, and yet still she sat at her desk, searching endlessly through papers, staring contemplatively out of windows, or pacing back and fourth across the strangely tiled floor. Something was bothering her. That much was clear. He had even briefly entertained the thought that she was musing about him. But of course she had hardly spared a thought for him since last they met. He hardly entertained the thought that she might feel for him. He had thought, for a brief flickering moment, that she felt those same stirrings of longing, but he'd been mistaken. She had abandoned him; left him alone at the top of a beanstalk with a giant she claimed would not kill him. She'd had no compunction about knocking him out cold during their heated duel afterwards. No, he harbored no such romantic delusions. Though he admired the strength of her arm and the valor with which she had fought him, he could not help but recall those memories without the faint taste of bitterness tainting them. Indeed, the same bitterness colored each of his memories of her, for he was angry at himself for letting her affect him so. And yet here he was, watching her from afar like some love struck fool.

Yet despite these angry thoughts he quickly resumed his huddled crouch once he had stretched enough to alleviate some of his discomfort. He wouldn't risk being seen for the pleasure of being able to walk in the morning. Better to have his muscles clench in cold and pain then to be caught, let alone caught spying on the Swan girl.

Despite the biting frosty air the night itself was clear and beautiful. Killian glanced up at the stars and wondered, not for the first time, at the beauty of the heavens above. The night sky held more sparkling jewels in its dark embrace then he had ever been able to plunder in his many years before the mast. His eyes were immediately drawn to two bright stars in the eastern sky. The second star burned brighter than it's companion, and Killian smiled faintly at the memories it brought.

The cold was quickly sapping the strength from his fingers, and he forced them open to place his spyglass next to him on the roof. He blew into his hand, the warmth of his breath bringing some relief from the draining cold. Briefly he eyed his hook. The metal glinted brightly in the starlight. The steel, he knew, would be colder than his fingertips would ever be. It adapted to the changing temperature of the air around him, alternately hot and scorching from the blazing sun as it had been when he had wandered the jungles of Neverland, or cold and frozen as it was tonight. It certainly wasn't natural, but it was as much a part of him as anything else.

Sighing softly to himself he retrieved the spyglass from the ground beside him. He tugged it open; holding it in his good hand and catching his hook on the notch he had placed there to help open it. It had once been an inconvenience to live each of his days with only one hand, but he hardly gave it a thought as he placed the spyglass back up to his eye, resuming completely the position he'd held for hours.

He angled the spyglass towards the window that looked in on her desk. The blond hair that has been within his sight for hours was not there. With rising dread he trained the spyglass on each of the lighted windows of the sheriff's station in turn.

She was gone.

An exasperated huff escaped him as he swung himself around to face the street and found that it too was empty. After hours spent watching, his beguiling creature she had slipped away the second his gaze had wandered.

_His _beguiling creature...well that was new. Killian forced that newfound thought to the back of his mind. She was maddening that Swan girl. In the short time he'd known her, he had apparently begun to think of her as _his_. After all that he'd been through, he had sworn, with every fiber of his being that he would never love again. But now...

He had to stop this. Now, before it got out of hand. He already spent more time thinking about her, both un-intentionally and very _int_entionally, than he spent thinking about his revenge. He wasn't about to let some girl interfere with the vengeance he'd been plotting for the past three hundred years.

_And yet here you are. Standing on this roof._

Suddenly furious with himself, Killian roughly closed his spyglass and shoved it angrily inside the leather pouch at his belt. He glared at the lighted windows of the sheriff station, glowing brightly and speaking of a deceptively inviting warmth behind them. There was no warm welcome awaiting him there. Of that much, he was certain.

A door banged shut from somewhere behind him. He jumped at the sudden noise in the quiet night, his hand going unthinkingly to the hilt of his sword.

A quiet, disbelieving voice broke the silence.

"Hook?"


	2. Chapter 2

He had been bested by a swan.

Again.

He quickly composed his features into a mask of cocky assuredness and spun around to face her.

"Swan," he said, flashing that confident smirk that affected every woman he had ever crossed paths with...expect for her. "We meet again."

"How the hell did you get here!" she exclaimed, "It's...it's...impossible," she said, her voice dropping to that same disbelieving whisper with which she had first spoken his moniker.

"It isn't, actually. It's quite possible. In fact, its reality," he finished with a grin.

It seemed that she had lost the ability to speak. She simply stared at him with the same, unchanging astonished expression. Mouth slightly agape, it seemed that she could hardly make a sound.

"Speechless in my presence Swan?" he chuckled, "Why I'm flattered."

That seemed to unfreeze her. She quickly cocked her eyebrow and set her mouth in a frown. "Don't be," she said, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice, "You of all people should know the difference between simple shock and adoration."

"Funnily enough I often find that the two go hand in hand, especially when I have a woman on her back. Perhaps you remember? We had begun to discuss such enjoyable moments. Care to find out if I can _shock_ you into some _adoration_?" he finished with a wink.

Ah there is was again. That look. It always amused him to see it, and even though she threw it his way quite a lot, he enjoyed having the power to evoke at least that response out of her. He grinned at his achievement.

"What would be _shocking_," she retorted, emphasizing the word more than he had, "would be if you could stop flirting long enough to answer my question. How in God's name did you manage to get here? The portal closed behind us. No one else came out."

"Well, you see love," Killian drawled, a hint of mischief creeping into his voice, "that bean, the one that I took from the Giant. Turns out that it wasn't so dried up and useless after all. All that it needed was a little...watering."

"The waters of Lake Nostos." she said with a small shake of her head. "Of course."

"There you are love now you're catching on!" Killian exclaimed in mock approval. "You really are too smart for your own good lass."

Instead of the usual scathing look he had been expecting, a sudden flash of horror crossed her face.

"Cora." she gasped, "Where the hell is Cora? Did she come through with you? Is she here, in Storybrooke?"

He chuckled half-heartedly, "Like I said, too smart for your own-"

"Hook!"

"Alright lass don't bite my head off!" he exclaimed, "If you must know. Cora is here. In Storybrooke."

"But we came back almost a week ago. Have you been here that long?"

"Yes of course," he replied, "Been missing me this whole time have you?" It was only half a joke, though he wouldn't allow himself to admit that he hoped it was at least partly true.

"No, but apparently you have," she countered, her face briefly betraying her annoyance, "Have you been spying on me this whole time?"

He hoped that she couldn't see in the pale moonlight the way his face momentarily blanched of color.

He composed himself quickly. "Spying on _you_, love," he smirked, "Why, I was merely doing some reconnaissance for Cora. Getting the lay of the land so to speak. And here I was this whole time thinking that the _pirate_ was supposed to be the self-absorbed one," he jibed as nonchalantly as he could.

Too late he remembered that she had a propensity for knowing when people were lying. Sure enough, a flicker of doubt crossed her features. To his relief, however, she decided to let the subject drop.

"Where is she?" Emma demanded, a note of worry creeping into her voice. "Cora."

"As if I'd tell you love," Hook sneered, "I don't even know myself actually...off doing something in regards to her daughter I'd imagine."

"Hook I swear if you don't tell me..." she let the threat dangle in the air, "My son is out there. She could do something to him. I can't let anything happen to him!"

Her voice rose to a desperate pitch. Killian fought a sudden urge to step forward, to reassure her that no harm would come to her or her son. Her stricken look pained him in the deepest part of his withered heart. He knew what it was like to have some magical being come after the one you love, and all the while feeling powerless to stop it.

"Rest easy Swan," he assured her, "Cora won't harm your boy. I promise." The oath was past his lips before he could stop them. He felt like kicking himself for saying it, knowing that it would be almost impossible to keep his word. There would be no crossing Cora. If she wanted the boy, she would have him. If he moved against her, he wouldn't live to see his revenge completed.

The look of relief on her face at his words almost made his brash promise worth it. "Thank you," she murmured fervently, for she, of course, could tell that his promise was true, despite his own misgivings.

They each stood there for a moment, both looking at the other with an altered sense of the reality that they had come to accept. Both were confused, and neither knew the next move to make, nor who should be the first to make it. They were trapped in themselves, with each other.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the direction his thoughts were taking him, Killian looked at the ground and cleared his throat. All at once, he felt an overwhelming desire to be anywhere else then where he was. He wanted nothing more than to put as much distance between himself and the Swan girl as possible. Once more affecting a charmingly conceited air, he raised his head and stalked swiftly past her, sparing hardly a parting glance. He could feel rather than see her turn to stop him, but he was already gone; down the stairs and out once again into the cold night on the street below.

He walked quickly through the town until he came to the dock; eager now for the warmth of his cabin and the invisibility that Cora's spell provided him. As his boots finally struck the weathered wood of the dock, he saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. For a moment, he stopped and stared at the creature gliding silently across the glassy surface of the calm harbor.

"Fucking Swans," he muttered angrily as he turned and boarded his ship.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun's early rays woke him from restless dreams. He had always been an early riser, for as captain, he had to rise before the rest of his crew, and was always the last to succumb to sleep. Three hundred years of the same routine hadn't left him yet, and he suspected they never would.

Sleep had rarely given him any true rest, and even less so after Milah's death. His dreams were consumed with the same poisonous hate and bitterness that filled his waking hours. He often woke with a scowl on his face, loathing the demons that haunted his every step.

With a sigh of resignation he disentangled himself from his bedding and moved toward the oaken chest that held his clothes. He plucked a red silk shirt from the top of the pile and slipped it over his head, the feel of the cool silk gliding across his skin making him shiver. Whatever this place was where Cora had brought him, it was certainly nothing like the humid warmth of Neverland.

He slipped a vest of black brocade over top, welcoming the small warmth that the additional layer provided. He tipped the lid of the chest, causing it to slam shut with a loud bang as he turned and crossed to his desk. His leather breeches were slung carelessly over the back of the chair, hanging haphazardly where he had thrown them in his agitation the night before. He slid his muscular legs into the supple leather, suddenly impatient to leave his cabin and step out into the crisp salt air.

His boots took the longest. Even with years of practice it was never an easy thing to do up the laces with a single hand. His haste and the cold made his fingers clumsy, and he cursed several times in frustration. Once the task was complete he stood up quickly, and made his way out into the cool dawn, grabbing his thick, high collared coat as he swept from the room.

He sighed as the air met his lungs, gulping in deep breathes of the salt air that always seemed to clear his head. It was one his few comforts, the briny smell of the sea, for it was the one thing that never changed no matter what world he was in.

He made his way slowly toward the bow of his ship, all disquiet having left him with his first breath of the sea. He grasped the worn wood of the railing with his good hand, feeling the grain of it underneath his fingertips. With another weary sigh he closed his eyes. He could feel the subtle rocking of the ship beneath his feet, a motion that soothed him further as though he were a babe wrapped in his mother's arms. He was struck, not for the first time, by how much he truly loved the sea. There was a rightness to the way his breath seemed to rise and fall with each passing wave, and his heart seemed in time with the steady crash of the sea on the shore.

He looked out at the horizon, and longed for the simple days when to reach that distant line had been his only goal in life. Endless adventures, thousands of ports, hundreds of women throwing themselves at him wherever he went...all were gone now. In their place, stood one plot, one driving force, one crocodile.

He growled in frustration, angry at his own inability to carry out his revenge with his target still sleeping little more than a stone's throw from where he stood. How he despised magic. Without it, his foe was nothing. He had proved that once before, on the deck of this very ship, and so he would do again.

He began to turn away from the rail, intending to perform his routine checks of the ship, when a flash of blonde caught his attention.

She was at the end of the dock, walking slowly down it toward where his ship was moored. He knew that she could not see the ship, but he stood still regardless, wanting nothing to give him away. She wandered slowly down the length of the dock, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her red leather coat. Her hair was curled today, a slight change that he found he liked. He caught himself thinking of catching his fingers in her long flowing locks and shook himself roughly to rid his mind of such a tempting thought.

She came ever closer, clearly lost in thought as she looked through his ship and out into the light grey dawn. He thought once or twice that she looked directly at him, but her gaze moved on before he could even remind himself of his invisibility to her. She seemed troubled somehow, somewhat agitated as she reached the end of the pier and glared down into the swirling water below. Had his sudden appearance in Storybrooke and their subsequent encounter caused this? _No, of course not_, he thought ruefully to himself. His head was truly full of ridiculous thoughts this morning.

She turned away from the cloud-blackened water, clearly not finding the answers to the questions she held. Her hands emerged from her pockets to wrap around her torso, bargaining for some additional warmth that her jacket could not provide. As she did her head tilted back, her eyes drifting upward to see if the sky held more answers than the water. Apparently, it did, for she stopped dead and stared at something overhead, a bewildered expression marring her features.

A stab of panic shot through Hook as he followed Emma's gaze to the top of the mast. "Damn!" he muttered as he caught sight of several seagulls perched atop the highest point of his ship. He wasn't sure if Cora's spell extended to things that came into contact with his ship, but he hazarded a guess that it didn't based on the look on Emma's face. He turned back to her, her gaze now flickering between the gulls and the place where she now knew his ship to be, a look of amused comprehension slowly dawning on her face.

"Shit," he groaned, knowing that it was only a matter of time before she found her way on board. Sure enough, she walked over to a box that held some gritting sand, took a handful, and threw it into the air. They both watched it land on the gangplank, she with a triumphant grin on her face, and he with a resigned grimace.

She tentatively placed a foot on the boards and carefully began to climb. Killian scrambled away from the edge, suddenly afraid to be caught watching her once again. Neither would he retreat to his cabin, he decided, and let her think that she had caught him unawares. This was his ship after all. He settled for perching as nonchalantly as he could manage on a crate beneath the main mast. It was a spot where she would not immediately see him, so he would be able to make the first move.

She clambered aboard noisily, the invisible boards making her footsteps loud and unsure. She stepped down onto the deck, more sure of her footing now, her mouth falling open as she took in her surroundings. Her eyes roved upwards, seeing now that the gulls were indeed perched upon a mast and not thin air.

"What's the matter love? First time aboard a pirate ship?"

Her eyes flicked downward to find him at the base of the mast. "Hook," she gasped. "I...I um...yes." she said uncertainly, clearly unsure of what to make of the situation.

"Hmm well you never forget your first," he smirked, winking roguishly at her.

This time, his snide remark failed to bring that agitated look he loved so well. He had failed at this last night as well. It appeared he was losing his touch, a sensation he had never felt before. He wasn't sure he liked it very much. He frowned for a moment, then tried again. "So what brings you to the Jolly Roger this early in the morning love? Couldn't sleep after our encounter last night eh?"

_Ah there's the look,_ he thought triumphantly.

"I wasn't trying to find your ship, I didn't even know it was here," she said, looking about her once again. "How did you get it here anyway? Seems awfully big to fit through the portal."

"Aye lass, but who says we went through the same portal?" he supplied with a sly grin, "Ah, I see you're confused. I'll elaborate shall I?"

She fixed him with a steely glare. _Ha, not losing my touch quite so much then after all!_

"When Cora summoned the waters fourth from deep beneath the earth, they exploded out of the ground in the form of a geyser. Some of the water splashed out onto the dried lakebed, where the parched earth soaked it up. We couldn't follow you through the same portal; it was too risky. So we searched the lakebed for some of the waters to restore the bean and make our own portal. We found a small amount pooled inside a lone seashell, and dipped the bean into the waters. It was, of course, restored, and we were able to create our own portal. Cora transported us to the Roger, I threw the bean into the water, and we sailed through the portal, right into your quaint little harbor."

"That's quite the story."

"Ah, but one worth believing I think, unless you can supply your own version that would make sense."

She seemed to contemplate that for a moment, perhaps running various scenarios through her head that she thought might work. In a flash she dismissed it, and began to walk about the deck, seemingly fascinated with the array of foreign objects that surrounded her.

"Was there something specific you wanted to talk about, lass? Or did you just come to admire my mast?"

She turned around to see a look of pure innocence plastered across his face. He smiled as she let out a bark of laughter, a sound that he found himself hoping to hear again and again.

At the same time they both rearranged their features so they were each hidden behind their respective walls. They were both such similar creatures, he thought to himself, each with a softer, gentler side that they had worked so hard to hide from the world. What was it about her that made his persona slip every now and again; that made him smile as though he were some smitten schoolboy? All at once she made him drop his mask, and yet feel as though he needed to fix it more securely in place.

His mood soured again, and pushing away from the crate on which he leaned, he began to walk to the stern of his ship.

"You should go Swan," he tossed over his shoulder. "Wouldn't want Cora to come back and catch you here on your own, would you?"

"You'll let me know if you see her, won't you?" she asked. "Please Hook, you promised to help me protect Henry."

He stopped, and heard her take a few hesitant steps in his direction. "I'm not asking you to place yourself in danger," she continued, "But if you can, let me know what she's up to if you find anything out. Please."

He turned back to her and saw the pained look upon her face. "I'll do my best," he said with a curt nod. He turned and climbed the steps to the ship's wheel, placing his hands on the worn wood. He sighed, regretting his promise to help her even more than he had when he first made it the night before. He wanted to help her, he would admit that much, but it would complicate things to say the least. He turned back towards the prow, and to his relief, not a streak of blonde was in sight.


End file.
